


Temperance

by Soll



Series: Seblaine Week 2020 [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cheating, M/M, Season 5 AU, Seblaine Week 2020, Underage Drinking, not on each other ofc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25219591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soll/pseuds/Soll
Summary: The first time he sees him it's the third day of classes.Red chinos, gelled back hair, a striped sweater. He's smiling, talking to a guy with blue hair and a nose ring that looks like he's about to tongue him. It's a common enough look on people who have talked to Blaine Anderson for more than five minutes.Blaine doesn't see him and he doesn't say anything. He never prided himself on courage.or: Season 5, but Sebastian is there and they share gen-ed classes at NYU.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Series: Seblaine Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829848
Comments: 20
Kudos: 99
Collections: Seblaine Week 2020





	Temperance

The first time he sees him it's the third day of classes.

Red chinos, gelled back hair, a striped sweater. He's smiling, talking to a guy with blue hair and a nose ring that looks like he's about to tongue him. It's a common enough look on people who have talked to Blaine Anderson for more than five minutes.

Blaine doesn't see him and he doesn't say anything. He never prided himself on courage.

* * *

“I thought you off at Yale.” Blaine's voice tells him as he's putting his notebook back in his bag.

He breathes. He puts his bag over his shoulder and turns.

It still hurts a bit, how Blaine looks at him.

“I don't even know what I'm majoring in.” he shrugs, and Blaine crosses his arms but it doesn't look like he's closing himself off.

“I get that.”

He says, but he doesn't need to. They've talked about this before, about how choosing a doorway to cross sometimes just means closing many more doors.

“Let me guess, you got into Tisch?”

“Drama.” he smiles. “But I'm taking a lot of Gen Ed classes. It feels good to- scout other things.”

They're staring at each other long enough that it's skirting on the verge of awkward, when his elven friend pushes between them.

“Matthew.” he introduces himself, and Sebastian shakes his hand.

He's not hideous, but Sebastian draws the line at wearing glasses without lenses. He turns to Blaine to silently judge his choices in friends. He regrets it as soon as he sees tension leaving Blaine's face- like Sebastian reassuring him that he won't even take a second look was all he needed.

“So, Blaine was telling me you're friends.” Matthew asks, and Sebastian smiles.

“We are.”

Blaine smiles too, and it's a bit easier after that not to focus on the hideous, traitorous feeling in chest.

He's moved on. Turned several pages. Accepted his defeat and matured over it. He even helped him propose to the least deserving person he could think of.

It's time to test it.

* * *

Sebastian forces himself not to notice many things about Blaine. The way his cheeks darken by the time the day is finished, how great he looks with a few button loose at the collar of his shirts, how he always ends up sitting sprawled legs and chin on his hand twenty minutes into Modern Ethics, and how nice it feels to have his knee casually pressing against his thigh.

How he's not wearing a ring.

He knows he's still engaged.

It drives him crazy that no one would know by looking at his hand.

* * *

Blaine blows bubbles on his cheek by the third week of class, and Sebastian laughs and squats his hand away.

“Where did you even get that?” he asks as they drink their coffee on the steps of the Lit building.

“Sam.” Blaine says shrugging. “He's always coming home from photo shoots with gifts and props. I haven't blown bubbles in forever.”

He does it again, and Sebastian looks at them blowing away in the gray windy day.

“This isn't weird, is it?” Blaine asks under his breath, and Sebastian doesn't turn.

He looks at the last bubble disappear against someone's coat.

“It's nice.” he says, not really answering.

Another spray of bubbles hit is jaw and cheek and he can't help but smile.

* * *

“Two double bacon.” Sebastian tells to Hiram the food truck deity.

“Ah, no.” Blaine cuts him off. “Make it one. I'll get a salad.”

He's a little bit scandalized.

“Don't look at me like that.” Blaine says visibly embarrassed. “I have to stop eating so much.”

“Why?”

“Because. I can barely zip my pants anymore.”

“That's because they're too tight.”

“They fit me a month ago.”

“Didn't look like it.”

Blaine snorts and Sebastian pays for their lunch. It's sad to get change back.

“I hate you.” Blaine tells him looking at his cronut.

“Just because you decided to stop eating, doesn't mean I have to.”

“I'm not _not_ eating.” Blaine lies. “I'm just not scarfing down food.”

“Half a cronut won't kill you.” he says ripping it in two.

He hands Blaine an half and he looks at it with longing.

“Just eat it-” he says sticking it to his cheek, “I can't see you like this.”

Blaine laughs and brushes the sugar away from his cheek.

“Fine. Just half a cronut on Wednesdays.” he says, and Sebastian nudges him.

“And half on Fridays?”

“We never eat together on Fridays.” he says with his mouth half full.

“We could if you went jogging with me and we got breakfast after. I have class at nine.”

Blaine little smile as he swipes his thumb on the corner of his mouth is worth an extra run.

“If I can't fit in my yellow chinos by the end of October, I'm blaming you.” Blaine informs him, and Sebastian really shouldn't say, but it kind of feels like he has to.

“You know you look great, right?”

“That's very kind, but-”

“Just take a compliment, Anderson.”

Blaine sighs like he can't stand him, and when he turns to look up at him Sebastian has the sudden, excruciating desire to kiss him. He tries to smile instead.

“Thank you, Sebastian.” he says through dark lashes.

“That's more like it.”

* * *

Some sophomores are putting on a production of an original screenplay and they're holding auditions. Sebastian signs up first, and when he passes by the board a day later he finds Blaine's name scribbled under his.

* * *

He's starting to think Blaine stood him up when he sees him getting off a bus, neon green shorts, a black hoodie and the face of someone who needs to sweat something off.

He hasn't even said anything when Blaine cuts him off.

“Not now.” Blaine mouths, getting a earbud in his ear and tugging at Sebastian's hoodie. “Come on.”

He doesn't push it. Blaine does, kicking the concrete of the streets of Central Park. Sebastian lets him set the pace, not telling him to hold off when he pushes too far and starts panting. Blaine will know himself when it's too much.

When he slows down and stops with his hand on his knees Sebastian follows suit, pushing his hair back and taking a deep breath. He's a bit out of shape. He should stop procrastinating and just find a good dance studio to hole himself in.

They walk the rest of the way to the first cafe they can find, getting a cronut and two coffee to go. Sebastian holds the bag as they make it through a bench with a sight on the lake.

“If you-” Blaine starts, but he never finish the sentence. Instead he clutches the coffee in his hand, ever minute getting tension back in his muscles.

Sebastian doesn't know what to do to make it better. Blaine mood usually just lifts whenever they're together.

“Is this about Kurt?” he asks, and Blaine shoulder clench. “You know, Blaine, when I helped you propose to him, it was because I thought it would make you happy.”

He's expecting to be told off, that's he's crossing a line, but Blaine just clenches his jaw, clutches the coffee in his hand.

He drops it to the ground.

He hugs himself, a hand over his eyes, shoulders barely shook by outbursts of stifled sobs.

Sebastian has never felt more useless. He reaches out to touch his shoulder but he doesn't know if he can, if he'll make it worse.

A wet intake of breath.

He has to at least try.

He wraps an arm around Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine lets him hold him, tight and clenched, and he's not crying more than he's forcing himself to breath.

He doesn't know what else to do but hold him.

He keeps looking at the coffee on the ground, looping around Blaine's shoes.

“You think you're gonna look distraught enough to get a refund for that?”

Blaine breaks in a short, breathless laugh and turn his face into Sebastian's chest.

Sebastian holds him closer, scoots so there's no room between the sides of their bodies.

“You're an ass.” Blaine says and Sebastian feels it in sternum.

“I like opportunist better.”

“Mh.” Blaine hums. “Maybe you're not as much as you think.”

Sebastian doesn't really get it until Blaine looks up at him, wide eyes and a little smug smile. It's tragic how good he looks.

“Come on, Anderson.” he drawls, as scruffy as he can. “We both know I don't need to take advantage of you to make you kiss me back.”

Blaine's eyes drop to his lips.

For a second Sebastian thinks he might kiss him.

“You wish.” Blaine chuckles pushing at his chest, and Sebastian laughs and lets go of his shoulder.

They pay for another coffee and split at the bus stop. Blaine is smiling when he waves him goodbye and hops on it, and it's all Sebastian wants for him.

* * *

“And this-” Sam says slamming in his hand on the table. “Is why Jar Jar Binks was a Sith lord!”

Blaine laughs and looks at Sebastian as to leave him the honor.

“I agree.” he grins,

“Oh, come on!” Blaine protests, and Sam turns to him like he's mortally offended.

“Dude! I thought you were in it!”

“I'm- into it.” Blaine waves off, “As a conspiracy theory.”

“What is it that doesn't make sense to you?”

“Yeah, B, what is it?”

Blaine gapes looking between the two of them.

“You're- it's Jar Jar Binks! He's not a Sith.”

“So now Gungans can't be Siths?” Sebastian insists.

“It's a bit racist, dude.” Sam says, and Blaine gapes some more.

“I didn't say Gungans can't be Siths. It's specifically Jar Jar Binks.”

“I still haven't heard a single counterpoint.”

“You do not want me to debate with you, Smythe, I've won trophies.”

“I want to believe you, but right now you're not giving me much reasons to.”

“You-! I- You know what? I'm going to flirt with the barista for a non virgin drink. Excuse me.” he says standing up, and Sebastian laughs.

“Fine, admit defeat.”

“No.” he says spinning over so that he's walking backwards like a menace. “Ah. Don't even try it.”

“But-”

“Shush.” Blaine says before walking into someone and turning to apologize.

Sebastian shakes his head and drinks some of his rum and coke sans rum.

“You know, man,” Sam tells him raising his root beer to click it with his glass. “I didn't think you were this cool.”

“Yeah, I don't think your cool is what other people consider it to be, but thank you. You're not that bad, either.”

They go silent as they both drink another sip.

“But you totally believe the Jar Jar is a Sith lord, right?”

“I don't don't believe it?” He tries, and Sam looks extremely confused.

“By the way,” he says, “Are you still sleeping on Blaine's couch? Because one of my roommates is moving out, so-”

“Oh, no.” Sam says, now looking a different kind of confused. “I'm living at Mercedes'. We are.”

Sebastian frowns.

“Why would Blaine live with you and Mercedes?”

Sam makes a whole face, raising his hands in front of him.

“He made a whole boundaries speech, but if you ask me, Kurt doesn't want him around and Blaine's trying to-”

“Not make Kurt break up with him?” he finishes when Sam searches for words.

“Yep.” he says, and they both raise their glasses and drink to it.

The coke tastes way bitter than it did before.

He wonders if this was why Blaine looked like that on Friday.

“You know you can talk to each other without me being around, yeah?” Blaine asks sitting on the bench next to Sebastian instead of getting back to his chair. His hand is a little bit too close to Sebastian's thigh.

“We were.” he says, elbows on the table. “But since apparently you don't like us exercising our critical thinking we stopped before you came and took our fun away from us.”

“You're insufferable,” Blaine laughs, drinking whatever it is that he managed to get at the bar. “Want some?” he offers, and Sebastian moves his head to the left to take a sip from the straw.

He almost spits it out as Blaine laughs his ass off.

“I hope someone tosses you into a blender, you hideous gremlin!”

“Woah, dude, that's hardcore.”

“Why a blender?” Blaine asks drinking more of his stupid drink.

“Because it's the only proper way to kill one.” Sam points at him, “And is that drink that bad?”

“I want to die.” he answers chugging half of his coke.

“There's gin in it.” Blaine says, “He hates it.”

“It's disgusting and I hate you.”

“I didn't think you'd fall for it!” Blaine says scooting closer. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Excuse me if I forgot you're a fun-sized bundle of evil.”

“Never do, dude.” Sam says, “He's like Stitch.”

“No, you know what he is?” he points at Sam. “He's a fucking Ewok.”

“I agree, but what's wrong with Ewoks?” Sam asks, and Blaine turns his outraged gasp into a very disingenuous _mh_. “They're small, snuggly and deadly.”

“Yeah, what's wrong with them?” Blaine asks him, his elbow next to Sebastian's shoulder.

“You know perfectly well what's wrong with Ewoks.” he says, and Blaine stop sucking on his straw with a smack. He leans in, and Sebastian sighs preventively in defeat.

“I wouldn't know. Haven't heard a single counterpoint.”

Sam snorts in the background and Sebastian is kind of glad he did because he's been staring at Blaine a little bit too intensely. He waves off and turns away. He's not giving in.

“Come on, 'Bastian.” Blaine says close enough that he can feel his breath on his ear. “We're even now, you can stop pouting.”

“You fed me poison.” he says, and he doesn't turn because he's afraid of how close Blaine is.

“But you should have known.” Blaine teases him, “You said it yourself, I'm an Ewok. I'm cute, snuggly and deadly. Actually, _I_ -” he says straightening up to point at himself, “should be offended because you underestimated me.”

“He has a point, dude.” Sam says.

“Don't gang up on me.” Sebastian whines, because it's eleven pm on a Wednesday and he's out drinking in a lame bar with sci-fi posters covering the walls, and he kind of feels at home.

“I don't know, I feel betrayed now.” Blaine pouts back, mashing his drink with the straw. “Maybe if you apologized-”

“Don't push it, Anderson. You might be pretty, but I draw a line.”

Sebastian doesn't like the smug smile on Blaine's lips.

“Since when?” Blaine asks looking at him from a low angle, and Sebastian is done.

“Really?” He asks, “Will you steep so low?”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Blaine raise his hand. “Let's call it even and move on, okay?”

Sebastian only shakes on it because the only other way he'd think of end this is making out with Blaine senselessly.

He still thinks about it, sometimes. If he ever came close enough to imagine how good it'd feel to kiss him.

“Wait. Blaine's an Ewok, but what are we?” Sam asks, and it takes them three minutes to scroll down the list of Star Wars species on their phones.

Blaine's dies after two entries and he presses into Sebastian's side to peak at his screen.

He smells like raspberry and sandalwood aftershave, and Sebastian doesn't think about it.

* * *

Blaine keeps much more distance between them when Sam isn't around.

They still stumble on each other fingers with precision when they pass their cronuts back and forth.

* * *

“Out.” Sebastian says for the umpteenth time leaning against the open door.

“I'm going, I'm going-” the guy he picked up at the bar says with the audacity of being pissed off about being sent on his way at four in the morning. Like Sebastian owed him a place to stay at night. Besides, he's way too well dressed not to have one. Sebastian bets he's got a girlfriend home he doesn't want to go back smelling like sex and other men.

Sebastian closes the door behind him as soon as he's out in the hallway.

He rubs his shoulder as he pads into the kitchen to fetch himself some water and maybe some frosted flakes, if Jordie hasn't stolen them. It's a non spoken arrangement: Sebastian doesn't complain about the missing food and Jordie doesn't make a scene at Sebastian for having guys over at the weirdest hours and without any warning.

“You know, man-” Jordie yawns getting into the kitchen. “You always make more noise when you throw them out than when you're fucking them.”

“It's not my fault New Yorkers don't understand the concept of a hook up.”

“Maybe you're just too good to leave behind.” Jordie sing sangs.

“Want to try me out?”

“No, thanks, I don't want to get rabies.” Sebastian frowns. “Beside, I'm out there searching for love.”

“Trust me,” Sebastian sighs eating a handful of flakes from the box. “You don't want that.”

Jordie pats him on the arm and Sebastian hits him on his nape with the back of the cereal box.

* * *

There's a dance studio three streets off his apartment. It's small, and the owner knows his mother from college, before they both decided to drop out because they felt restricted by the rigidity of a structured education, meaning they were failing all of their classes. It's nice to be payed to teach a few entry classes in Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing and Tap dance. Besides, it will look good when he inevitably resigns to apply to a non-major course at Tisch.

He's just done teaching tweens about flips, when he looks in the mirror and notices Blaine leaning in the door frame. He smiles without thinking. Blaine smiles back, but it's small and restrained and Sebastian can't have an attitude like that in his class.

He lets the gremlin loose and waits for Blaine to walk into the trap.

“Hey.” he says, and Sebastian hands him out a hand.

Blaine follows it and does that breathless _'I can't believe you'_ laugh he's been throwing at him since the first time they met.

“Come on. Can you really say no to a little West Coast improv?”

Blaine sighs but he's already throwing off his coat and dropping his something-hundred messenger bag on the floor. Then he takes off his sweater too, and Sebastian tilts his head at the black tank top and whole lot of arms he's left looking at.

“I guess I can't.” he says rather cheekily, and Sebastian smiles and runs up to the stereo.

“Don't worry about the steps,” he says when he walks up to Blaine, who's tightly wound and pressing down on his back muscles, just a bit to the left of the base of his neck. “Let's just have fun.”

“Don't baby me, Smythe. I can keep up.”

Sebastian takes him by word.

Blaine can keep up alright. He follows Sebastian through footwork that he wouldn't have faulted him to mess up, and he's incredibly cheeky when it comes to turns, always edging them away. It's way more fun and sexy than it has any right to be. His hand fits the slope of Blaine's waist short of perfectly. Blaine doesn't always go where Sebastian wanted to lead him, but it just makes it more fun to take it somewhere else. By the time he's tricked into following Blaine's lead for a section, Sebastian would do anything to keep on going.

The music ends finding them chest to back, and when Blaine leans back and looks up at him, Sebastian really can't help tilting his head down. But the next song starts, and Blaine unravel from the twist he had his arm in. Suddenly they're at it again, and Sebastian can't really complain.

There's not much that makes him as happy as dancing. Dancing with Blaine to slow, sensual West Coast, is the most fun he's had in a long while. It's not just because it's Blaine who he's holding hands with and guiding up and down in a line, it's also the easy certainty that Blaine will follow through anything he twists him into, and that Blaine trusts him not to do anything he can't follow through with, in return.

They dance far longer than Sebastian had planned to, and when Blaine walks right into him at the end of a song he holds him by his hips and ignores Blaine laughing and panting in his neck, his hands on Sebastian's arm and chest.

“Thank you.” Blaine tells him walking back away. “I needed that.”

He runs his hand down Sebastian's arm and holds his hand.

Their fingers catch before they let go.

“I'm cooking dinner tonight. Want to come?”

Sebastian should say no.

They take his presence as an excuse to recount their old glory days, and by the time Mercedes is giving demonstrations of hairography and Sam is leading them in a sing-a-long of Billionaire that Kermit the frog would be proud of, Sebastian has to come to term with the fact that he likes these people. He likes them even when Blaine isn't here, more specifically, since he's been abandoned with the happy couple as he finishes roasting a duck.

He goes to find Blaine to tell him.

He didn't know how he had expected to find him, but it wasn't sitting on the table with his hands on his eyes, the window open and a vague smell of burnt chicken.

“Hey.” he says, and Blaine sighs and looks up at him, and he's not crying, nor on the verge of hyperventilating. He just seems tired.

“Hi. Sorry, I- I don't even know how I did it, but I burnt the fucking bird.”

Sebastian laughs and joins him to the side of the table. Blaine's eyes fall to where his hand is wrapped around the side of it.

“Do we have a backup duck?”

“Yeah, a flock of 'em upstairs.”

“Want me to go get one?”

Blaine nudges him and Sebastian wraps an arm around his shoulder. He's half expecting Blaine to push away but he sinks into his side, Mercedes and Sam singing what sounds suspiciously like Red Solo Cup in the other room.

“I already felt the taste of it on my tongue,” Blaine whines, “I have no idea how I manged to screw it up. I've been doing this recipe since I was fourteen.”

“It happens. You're so used to do something that you miss a step and your brain tricks you into thinking everything is fine.”

“Then fuck my brain, because I really wanted that duck in my mouth.”

“Well, it might not be a duck, but I might be able to put something together.”

“No.” Blaine says very seriously, scratching up the legs of Sebastian's jeans. “You're our guest. And you bought wine, too.”

“It's really gonna take ten minutes.”

“What am I walking into if I say yes?” Blaine says looking at him with a distrust Sebastian doesn't appreciate.

“Hey! I'm offering my services and you question my honor?”

“Answer me.” Blaine nudges again, and Sebastian does.

“Not much. Only authentic french savory crepes.”

“Oh my God, for real?” Blaine asks like he's suddenly his favorite person.

“Yeah, for real.” he smiles. “I just need milk, eggs and flour. Some butter, too.”

“Thank you.” Blaine says getting away from under his arms and starting to open cabinets. “Really, thank you, it's been an off day and I just wanted decent home cooked food.”

“Well, now.” he shrugs. “I now for a fact part of the day wasn't that horrible.”

Blaine looks up at him when he's set the flour on the counter.

“And I have you to thank for that, too.”

“Come on, you made me a favor. I haven't had that much fun with West Coast in a while.”

“You're welcome, then.”

Sebastian laughs halfway through pouring flour in a bowl. He hasn't had to measure it in years.

“You never told me why you came by.” he says, and Blaine takes his time to answer.

“You always look so happy when you dance, I figured it'd put me in a good mood to see you.”

Sebastian is almost afraid to look up.

But Blaine is smiling, head resting against the fridge.

“Did it?”

“I just burned my duck and I'm not having a melt-down. What do you say?”

“That you're so far gone that you're dissociating?”

Blaine laughs and walks away.

“The eggs and the milk are in the fridge.”

“Where do you think you're going?”

Blaine stops midway.

“The kitchen is small, I figured you wanted some space.”

“Blaine.” he says, “Since when do I want you to give me space?”

He doesn't know exactly what he did, but suddenly Blaine is breathing in loudly and looking up.

“Would it kill you,” Blaine shakes his head. “to be just a little less wonderful?”

“I'm doing the bare minimum here, Blaine.”

“No, you're not. Everything you do is exactly what I need. And you're not making me feel like I owe you anything for it, too. It's much more than the bare minimum.”

“If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't be opposed to get something out of it.”

Blaine laughs and walks back up to him, and Sebastian almost drops the bowl of flour when Blaine leans up to kiss his cheek.

“I know I'm leaning on you too much-” he starts, and Sebastian sighs and takes his hand to spin him without warning.

Blaine laughs, an higher pitched sound that he ever heard him make. When he crashes back into Sebastian's arms it's effortless to get back there whey there were in the studio.

“You're not.” Sebastian tells him. “And if you are, it doesn't feel like it. So stop worrying about it, because when you don't, this happens. And it's pretty good.” he says.

Blaine smiles and wraps his arms around his neck.

“It is, isn't it?”

* * *

He makes it in the ensemble. He has four lines in a fifty minutes production, and a lot of dancing to do.

Blaine makes the lead.

“Glad to see they're not completely incompetent.” He smiles and Blaine beams and hugs him, lingering more than he should.

Blaine comes in the first rehearsals with the hesitation and determination of someone that doesn't know if he should be there but wants to prove he's worthy of it.

Sebastian doesn't even bother asking what changed between the pure joy of the night before, clicking drinks with Sam and Mercedes, and that morning. He already knows the answer.

He gets to see it again, how happier Blaine can get in the span of an hour. How his shoulder relax and his smiles turns up and his passion shines through. It's a spectacle to watch him come alive, and it hurts to know Blaine still chooses Kurt over himself everyday.

* * *

It shouldn't happen like this.

It's Matthew's birthday and they're all drunk and messy and pumping their fists in the air in a rock house club that smells like nicotine and sweat, low cheap red lights and basses that cut through the sternum. Sebastian is on his third Raspberry Kiss, which he's been teased all night for ordering, and Blaine has spilled beer foam all over their shirt as they tried to no avail to improvise a West Coast routine to some pounding remix of Bon Jovi hits.

Sebastian lost sight of him after being dragged in a handsy dance with a hot guy who looks like he could star in 90210. He left him hanging as soon he had kissed him, because it was too early to waste a night of fun on a hook up he wasn't really in for anyway.

He searches for Blaine and Matthew points him toward the bar. He's drinking more beer, curls loose and sweat shining on his arms, on his neck, at the hollow of his throat. His black shirt has been unbuttoned low enough that Sebastian can see a hint of sparse dark chest hair.

“Here you are,” he says gripping his upper arm and pressing his mouth to his ear. It's the only way to be heard, and he revels in the musky scent of him under the sweet fruity note of his gel. “I thought I lost you.”

Blaine turns in his arms, pushes him back to the dance floor with a hand on his chest and one curled around his hip. He doesn't quite reach his ear when he says something against his skin, but Sebastian doesn't think he would have cought it anyway, his legs weak at the feeling of Blaine's lips grazing his jaw.

Blaine's arm circles his hips, rustling up his shirt just above his jeans. It's how they've been dancing all night, pressing closer and closer, but they've been laughing and pushing and joking and now Blaine is just moving with him. It would be okay, it would, if only he didn't run his left hand on the length of Sebastian's arm, and Sebastian hates that there's no cold metal to interrupt the plains of heated, sticky skin.

“It drives me crazy,” Sebastian says, again to his ear. He feels the hair at Blaine's nape standing up, and he nuzzles at his hairline. “That you don't wear a ring. If it was me, I'd want everyone to know I'm yours.”

He feels the shiver down Blaine's spine.

He doesn't pull away when Blaine turns, grips him closer, fingers digging on his arm, on the sensitive skin of his side.

It's not supposed to go like this.

He doesn't want it to be like this.

It goes like this.

It's a twenty minute walk from his apartment.

They take a cab.

Sebastian keeps thinking, Blaine's mouth sucking at his shoulder where it meets his neck, that either of them will come to their sense. That the alcohol will wear down, that away from the music they'll be able think again. But Blaine is holding onto him like it's the only way he has not to fall, and Sebastian can't bring himself to get away.

He keeps kissing Blaine's cheek. He doesn't know why. Maybe it's the barely-there rough stubble that itches his lips, or the way he can smell him and only him, or how innocent it makes it all feel, even with Blaine's thigh rocking between his legs.

It's weird.

When he thought of kissing Blaine, of his hands on him, he imagined them laughing. Smiling.

They aren't. They bump into each other, their teeth clenching. They're out of tune, and maybe Sebastian should take it as a sign that it's wrong, and they should stop, but he can't let go, he can't, not with Blaine so close, not after waiting for so long, even when he thought he'd stopped.

It's hard to let go when they have to stumble out the cab, and he has to fumble in his pocket for the cash. Blaine's is quicker, hands the driver way too much money for a seven minute drive with traffic, and Sebastian can't help it:

“What do you think it says about me that whenever you pay stuff for me I feel the urgent need to just take you against the nearest surface?”

Blaine turns to him with chapped, red lips and huge eyes and it's a moment before he crunches his nose.

“That you're clearly meant to be a trophy wife?”

And just like that it's fine.

He laughs, and sneaks his hand in Blaine's back pocket when he comes closer. When he searches for Blaine's mouth, he pulls away with a wicked smile and Sebastian just laughs more and waits for Blaine to kiss him, tongue sneaking in his mouth from the getaway, Blaine's fingers firm against his neck. Sebastian blood rushes away from his feet.

It feels like dancing with him. It's fun, and flirty, but now Sebastian can name the dark undertone that gives it depth: Blaine kisses him like Sebastian is his.

He doesn't know what it says about him that it makes him feel safe.

He isn't expecting Blaine to stay.

It doesn't mean he's enthusiastic of the sight of Blaine putting his clothes back on.

Blaine is so pretty he sometimes forget how handsome he is. Curls mangled, chest and cheek still splotched in red, strong thighs, broad shoulders. The view of his back as he puts on his pants is enough to get Sebastian half hard again.

He had thought having sex with Blaine would maybe close something, put him at rest, but he just wants more. It's more difficult than it ever was not to reach out and touch him, indulge in the smoothness of his skin and the shifting on muscles under it, in kisses that will make him stop thinking. Indulge in the sheer happiness of holding Blaine so close.

Sebastian thinks over everything. He enjoys things for reasons, dislikes them for reasons, and when he's got a gut feeling he needs to understand were it's coming from before trusting it. It's not often that he gets to stop and just feel things.

(Dancing.

Blaine.

The list is very short.)

He doesn't like it, he doesn't dislike it, it's just the way he works.

But now he'd do anything to sink into Blaine and just have fun. Just enjoy the sound of laughter in his ears and of their mouths as they kiss.

He knows it's not his call. He run his mouth enough for tonight.

He only looks as the muscles of Blaine's back tense, his jaw clenches, his back straightens. By the time Blaine is dressed the only sign they ever had sex is the mess of his hair.

He doesn't know if Blaine thinks he's asleep or he would just like to think he is, or he's back doing that thing in which he doesn't look at him, ever, always turned somewhere else not to look, but to avoid doing so.

He looks like he's all done, ready to take it away and probably go beg Kurt to forgive him because that's frankly what Sebastian expects from him, when Blaine starts fiddling on his nightstand.

Sebastian's heart stop beating.

He hastily took off the two bands of rose gold and silver his father gifted him before sinking his fingers into Blaine, too expensive and too dear to him to cover in lube, unlike the other six he's still wearing on his fingers.

He doesn't know if Blaine hears the throaty sound he stifles against his hand when Blaine takes one off the nightstand and wears on the ring finger of his left hand.

* * *

“Do you know his name?” Jordie asks him when they're eating breakfast, Sebastian rubbing his thumb against the place where his silver band should be at the base of his middle finger.

“Whose name?”

“The hottie you fucked yesterday night.”

“Why do you care?”

“I was cramming for Stat and I was fetching a snack when he sneaked out. We had a lovely conversation that I had trouble following because he was too gorgeous and I was too delirious, and I might be reconsidering my plan to avoid your sloppy seconds like the plague.”

“Sorry-” he grins pouring himself another glass of raspberry juice. “He's not up for trade.”

“Oh, come on. He's too pretty for your sex politics. He deserves to be taken on some dates.”

“I agree.” Sebastian smiles, and he doesn't stop even when Jordie catches up and coos at him like an old aunt.

* * *

Blaine is not wearing his ring in Modern Ethics, but he smiles when he sees him.

He's visibly tired, dark circles under red rimmed eyes, but he's got less gel in his hair and he's wearing Sebastian's favorite sweater, navy blue with red piping.

“I like your colors.” Sebastian smiles when they sit next to each other. “They remind me of something.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Blaine teases, “I never seen this combination before.”

“Oh, it just look like my High School uniform. I don't know if you know, but I went to this really classy prep school in Ohio. You would have liked it there.”

“Sounds fancy.” Blaine's knees press in Sebastian thigh. “Tell me more about this uniform.”

“Oh, well, it wasn't anything special.” Blaine squints and Sebastian casually leans to his left. “But that blazer? Made anyone sexier. I can only imagine what it'd to you.”

Blaine lips quirk up as he makes a point of looking ahead.

Then he snorts rather loudly and attempts to turn it into a cough when half the class turns to him.

“Are you making fun of me or the blazer? Because one would make me very sad and the other is an offense punishable by honor killing.”

“Both.” Blaine says under his breath, eyelashes fluttering. “I just can't believe the first time we actually flirt it ends up being about the blazer.”

An horrid, juvenile idea settles in Sebastian's brain.

“I mean, I did imagine you in it quite a lot.” Sebastian says in his best scruffy voice, scooting closer but not really caring if the Karens and Chads around them hear. “Both with or without other clothes.”

Blaine hums and his neck darkens in a shade of pink.

“Are we okay?” Sebastian asks because he's an idiot.

Blaine takes a short breath and for a second Sebastian thinks he's about to say he doesn't know. But then he dips two fingers inside the crossed collar of his sweater and thugs at a very fine silver chain at his neck.

Sebastian only has one name for the feeling warming up his chest and he's not going to say it in the middle of Modern Ethics. The smile on his face must be enough, undignified tingling at the corner of his eye and all, because Blaine looks at him like maybe he only has one name for it, too.

Blaine lets the ring hang outside his sweater.

* * *

He hears Blaine before he sees him.

It's a loud laugh drowning an _oh my God._ Sebastian is a bit puzzled. He was hoping to leave him speechless, not to having him laugh at him.

He gets it when he sees him, nearly doubled over, eyes crinkling and a hand halfway covering his mouth.

Sebastian can't help but laugh too.

“Why are you wearing the same jacket?” Matthew asks blowing out a smoke, and Sebastian would answer if he wasn't too preoccupied breathing.

“I can't believe you'd actually do it!” Blaine says hurrying over to stop in front of him in all of his Blaine Warbler glory.

“Look who's talking. You even wore gray chinos.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn't going not to wear anything, was I?” he scrunches his nose, and Sebastian can't believe him.

“You know what I meant.” he drawls.

“I don't.” Matthew says. “Is this a weird fetish?”

Sebastian looks for Blaine and Blaine looks for Sebastian and they both start laughing again because the only answer they could give is a _kind of_.

“Just let us be.” Sebastian says wiping at the corner of his eyes and actually taking a good look at something he should have looked at for two years of his life, everyday.

It fits Blaine better than it ever did anyone else. It's like it was tailored on him, and the button just makes his waist look smaller. When he looks back to Blaine's face he finds dark eyes and the slightest curve in his lips, and it's not a stretch to guess what he's thinking about.

“I don't really want to ask so early in the morning. Remind me when we go out for drinks.”

“We never go out for drinks with you.” Sebastian says, “We don't really like you.”

“I'm the only person you talk to other than him, you obviously like me better than a lot of people.”

He doesn't,r Matthew never has any hurry, talks slowly and like he really means anything he says- it's unnerving for someone like Sebastian, who's constantly running his mouth about anything. He keeps him on edge. That's why it's fun to have him around.

“I only talk to you because Blaine talks to you.” He would have never approached a try-hard with fake glasses and blue hair, if he was left to his own devices. He doesn't say it out loud.

“Let's just thank him, than.” there's a edge in his words Sebastian doesn't like.

He turns to look at him, but Blaine tugs at the lapel of his blazer, runs two fingers down the side of it.

“Let's go. We're already late.”

“Are you seriously going to walk around in the same clothes?”

“I'm not taking it off.” Sebastian says, “I actually graduated from Dalton.”

“Yeah, well, I have seniority.” Blaine squints in a flirty challenge.

Sebastian can't do this anymore.

Have Blaine this close, with his guard off, smiling at him like that.

Not after he kissed him. Not after he got to feel his heath, to lick the sweat off the hollow of his throat, to hold him so close he could feel their heartbeats merge in one.

He smiles and takes off his bag first and his blazer second. Blaine's eyes go huge, his shoulder tensing up, and Sebastian would like to hold him and reassure him that it doesn't mean anything about them, it's just him taking care of himself, but he can't.

“Well that was disheartening.” Matthew comments, butting out his cigarette in his pocket ashtray. “He really got you whipped.”

Matthew, as always, don't understand a thing.

Blaine smile is fake enough that Sebastian can only really look away.

* * *

He's drinking a very sad rum and coke, his fifth, when Matthew enters his peripheral vision.

“He's engaged.” he says instead of hi.

Is he still? Sebastian doesn't really know. He and Blaine don't talk about it- it doesn't seem important when they're together.

“So what?” he asks, “Daddy got a mistress and now he won't dote on you anymore?”

“Actually, yes. Daddy _got_ a mistress. That he left her dry after I find out and threatened to tell mom. They never leave their wife.”

But boy, do wives leave their husbands. He tilts his glass up to his mother.

“This is not about your dad and his lack of a backbone.”

“You're right. This is about _your_ lack of a backbone!”

Sebastian snorts and turns to him, exhaling slowly. He's not in the mood.

Matthew is clearly drunk, slurred angry words and watery eyes.

“You keep treating him like some sort of princess like you're the gardener boy who's just happy to make her smile with a rose.”

“I don't,” he says and maybe he's tipsy, “do anything special for him.”

“Please. You're always around him, you do anything he tells-”

“He doesn't tell me to do anything.” he interrupts him, because it's really not Matthew's place. “And I hang out with him because I actually like spending time with him. Shocker. Trust me, if I was _trying_ , you'd know.”

“Why are you wasting yourself away on someone that won't ever love you back?”

He does it before he thinks about it. Pours the drink right on Matthew's face, revels in gleeful joy at the drops of coke hanging to his eyelashes, dripping on his shirt.

He feels sick right after.

Blaine's face covered in red smiley ice, anguished cries through the silence.

“I could ask the same to you, couldn't I?” he sneers anyway, because the more afraid of hurting he is, the more he needs to hurt other people. “Except you really have no chance. This is the closest you'll ever get to fuck me.” he drawls over, turning Matthew's face in his hand. He buffs his cheek as soon as Matthew looks up to him with tear filled eyes.

“And you go around telling people they lack a backbone. Are you not going to even say anything? How did you even think that you could keep up with me?” he's raising his voice, he's drank too much on an empty stomach, he fucked himself over once in High School, he's fucked himself over now too, running his mouth, when all he ever really wanted was to have Blaine on his side- “I barely even notice you! Even with all the props you wear around, because you know that without them you're frankly as interesting as an episode of The Big Bang Theory.”

“Insulting me won't make what I said not true.” Matthew says back, voice small but cutting, and Sebastian pushes forward before he thinks.

A hand grips his arm.

He tries to break free, but he finds himself dragged back and pinned to the counter, a strong but gentle hand twisting in the front of his shirt. It's his ring that gleams under the light of the dance floor.

“The hell?” Blaine asks him with more concern he should have.

“Nothing.” Matthew says.

Sebastian knows from the way Blaine's hand curls tighter that he took a good look at Matthew.

“Come on-” he says, driving him out of the club. “You better have an explanation for this.”

“Why do you even want to hear it?” he sneers and it hurts to even imply Blaine doesn't care.

“Because I never got one the first time.”

He sobs before he can control himself.

They go sitting on the stairs of someone's house. Sebastian doesn't even try to hide his fidgeting, put his hands away. His head feels filled with cotton, and he can't make sense of anything if not Matthew's words speaking out a truth he can live with if it's never spoken aloud.

“What did he tell you?” Blaine asks, very tired, and Sebastian swipes at his nose with the heel of his hand.

“Not really any of your business.”

“Sebastian.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I can't tell you.”

“Yes, you can.” Blaine says, a hand on his thigh. He shivers.

“No.” Sebastian insists.

“So it was about me.”

Sebastian laughs, and it sounds strangled. He looks up to the dark sky he can't find a single star in.

“Or was it about us?”

He breath in slowly, heavily.

“What us?” he asks, turning to Blaine and regretting it a split second later. “There's no us. Not in the way that-”

He runs a hand through the back of his hair, grips the back of his neck.

“I'm not sure I can be your friend if that's all we can be. Not now.”

Blaine's hand tightens on his leg.

“I thought I could. God, I like being your friend, Blaine. It's all we really were and I didn't- I don't spend my time wondering or- thinking of how can I get you in bed with me, but-”

“Look at me.” Blaine says, nothing more than a breath, and Sebastian turns.

He can't tell what he's thinking. It drives him crazy.

“It's just really difficult to keep a distance when I know for sure that I make you so much happier than he does.”

Blaine's hand lose all his strength. His eyes widen, and his lips part.

“Whenever you leave to go home, I only wish I could be there with you. That I didn't know the way you're gonna look when you get to him. That you wouldn't choose him.”

“What did he tell you?” Blaine asks him again, and Sebastian tension almost break under the confusion, snapping back for anything he just told him.

“That you're not gonna leave him.” he says, steadying his voice. “That you don't love me. And that you won't.” It hollows him to say it out loud.

Blaine seems angry. Far angrier than he has ever seen him.

His hand is extremely gentle when he cups Sebastian's face, bring his a bit closer.

“You don't have to be kind about this,” Sebastian says, “Actually, I think it'd make it worse.”

“Okay.” he says, and his eyes get sweeter, the corner of his mouth lift ever so slightly. “You're an idiot.”

It's not what he expected him to say.

“Mh?”

“Since when do you second guess yourself because a guy with fake glasses tells you something?”

“I-”

“You've known since the day we met how I feel about you.” he says, smooth assertive voice.

Sebastian feels his heart thumping in his ear.

“Isn't this why you were so angry at me?”

“I wasn't-”

“Yes, you were. You thought you were mad at Kurt, but since when do you even care he exists? You were angry with me, and you were right to be. I came to you with anything just to feel good enough that the next punch he'd throw me, I knew I could take and still land on my feet. Do you know how many times I've told him I didn't care about you? That I told myself that it was all about how good you made me feel. I hate myself for wanting that to be true. But I knew it wasn't. You did.”

Blaine's takes his hand his in his, the cold metal of his ring pressing to his palm.

“I know, now. And you do, too.”

Sebastian can't do much more than breathing.

Blaine smiles, small and contained, but his eyes are huge and glossy and ever so honest.

It's always been in the way he looked at him.

“I broke up with him the morning after we slept together, Sebastian.” he says, “So, if this has became too much for you, and if you can't wait a little bit longer for me to catch a breath- and I get it if you do, I do- you can let me go. I won't be as happy as I am without you to tease around, but- I'll manage.”

It's difficult to breath.

“I don't believe I need Kurt to love me to be happy, anymore.” Blaine adds, breathless and certain, and Sebastian breaks.

He doesn't know why he's crying, really.

Relief.

He sobs in his hand, and Blaine just holds his other hand between is, head on his shoulder as they watch New Yorkers walk by.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he asks, when he's calmed down enough that he can't breath air other than tears. “That you broke up with him?”

“Why didn't you tell me to break up with him?”

“That's- I was afraid you wouldn't talk to me anymore.”

“Well, I was afraid that I would have messed it up. That you would have thought I tried to make him forgive me, and he didn't, and I was just- using you to feel less lonely. God, I'm afraid you might think that every second that I spend with you.”

“I never thought that.” he assures him, turning his face in Blaine's curls. “I know you like me more than you like him.”

Blaine laughs, and Sebastian nudges him away, turn so that he can hold Blaine's cheek.

“B?”

“Yeah?” Blaine smiles, and Sebastian smiles back, the knot in his stomach melted.

“Do you want time for you, or do you want time so that I won't think I'm just a rebound?”

Blaine hesitation is all he needs.

Blaine must see it on his face, because his smile is blinding.

It is, by all means, a bad kiss. They can't stop smiling, and their teeth clench, and they barely manage to close their lips around each other twice.

It's the best kiss Sebastian could have hoped for.

* * *

He wakes around four in the morning, Blaine tossing around the cover, a leg tangled in the sheets. He laughs and ignores Blaine's curses, hugging his waist and hiding his face in the crook of his neck.

“I'm sorry.” Blaine says when he has surrender the fight. “I didn't want to wake you up.”

“Hm,” he hums kissing his cheek. “Less time spent sleeping is more time spent with you.”

Blaine laughs in earnest, his chest heaving under Sebastian's arm.

“Shut up, Smythe.” He says kissing his ear. “You don't need to chat me up.”

“I wasn't.” He mouths to Blaine's skin. “If I was, I'd tell you how hot you look so blissfully fucked out. So much, in fact, that I would love to wear the look, too.”

Blaine rolls him over, and Sebastian isn't sure he's going to sleep ever again when he's got Blaine around to rile up. He's never wanted to be fucked into a mattress more.

“Just let me get this fucking blanket out the way and you won't be wasting any more me time.” Blaine mutters in a pragmatic and extremely charming voice.

Sebastian laughs and kisses him one more time.

He's bothering Blaine as he flips pancake in a pan when Jordie pads in the room scratching his chest.

“Oh,” he says half asleep, “He stayed.”

Sebastian smiles, stealing another blueberry.

“Yeah.” Blaine answers, “I did.”

Sebastian leans in the kiss Blaine leaves on his cheek.

“Aw, you're so cute. Can I have a compensation pancake for having to witness this?”

Blaine laughs and Sebastian hooks his index finger in Blaine's sweats, just where is spine is, when he turns to hand Jordie a plate.

It's fun to touch Blaine just because he can.

* * *

“Cheers!” Sam says opening a bottle of champagne and pouring it around the carpet. And on top of it.

Blaine cheers back and leans over to get his glass filled. It's more of a tumbler, and it's absolutely not the kind of glass they should be drinking expensive Chardonnay from, and Sebastian loves it.

He hugs Blaine shoulders as soon as he's back next to him, and extends his arm but let Sam doing most of the job in pouring him one.

Blaine kisses the underside of his jaw and then his lips when he turns, and he tastes like wine.

“Hi,” he smiles, and Sebastian says hi back before kissing him, because it's only polite.

“I hate to break the mood, boys,” Mercedes says, “but there's a whole ring situation going on and we're drinking fine wine, so I feel compelled to ask-”

“Don't worry,” he laughs right away, “It's not an announcement. I just thought we should celebrate finally getting that bird in our mouths.” he tips his glass to what's left of the duck over at the table.

“You don't have to say it like that every time.” Blaine scoffs, squeezing the tender flash of his hip as Mercedes draws a big breath of relief.

“Good, because I was just about to make a big scene and I'm not in the mood for that. I just want to chill.”

“I had Blaine promise he's not gonna make another proposal until he's thirty.” Sam nods.

“Excuse me?” Sebastian asks, “Shouldn't I have been involved in this decision?”

“Well,” Blaine says to his ear, “He never said anything about accepting a proposal before I'm thirty.”

“Hey!” Sam says, “Don't go around finding loop holes!”

“It's not even a loop hole, man. It's just an oversight. Please, just make me read over any document you will ever sign.” Sebastian says, and Mercedes toasts to him in an understated way.

“Leave Sam alone.” Blaine says, “And! I like to propose a toast.”

“Wait, I need a refill.” Mercedes says and Sebastian drinks what's left of his glass to take another round.

Blaine sits up straighter, curls free and plaid shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and Sebastian still needs to catch his breath from time to time.

“I'd like to propose a toast,” he repeats, smiling “to getting a second chance with the one that almost got away, because you weren't ready for how happy they'd make you the first time around.”

Mercedes and Sam smile holding each other hands, and Sebastian doesn't wait for the tinkering of the glasses to be over to kiss Blaine.

His smile against his lips tastes like bubbles.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this was once originally written in Blaine's POV but boy did I need some of Sebastian's levity.
> 
> hope you enjoyed this long boy- it just a fuzzy wiggly worm. that what it is.


End file.
